Set in late 1980s Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Black Dogs is the intimate story of the crumbling of a marriage, as witnessed by an outsider. Jeremy is the son-in-law of Bernard and June Tremaine, whose union and estrangement began almost simultaneously. Seeking to comprehend... show more

Set in late 1980s Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Black Dogs is the intimate story of the crumbling of a marriage, as witnessed by an outsider. Jeremy is the son-in-law of Bernard and June Tremaine, whose union and estrangement began almost simultaneously. Seeking to comprehend how their deep love could be defeated by ideological differences Bernard and June cannot reconcile, Jeremy undertakes writing June's memoirs, only to be led back again and again to one terrifying encouner forty years earlier--a moment that, for June, was as devastating and irreversible in its consequences as the changes sweeping Europe in Jeremy's own time. In a finely crafted, compelling examination of evil and grace, Ian McEwan weaves the sinister reality of civiliation's darkest moods--its black dogs--with the tensions that both create love and destroy it.

A classic McEwan in that this novel is not so much a story as a study.Jeremy, orphaned as a child and raised half-heartedly by his single mom sister, became very close to his inlaws. This novel is his trying to piece together and understand the reasons for their extended (decades long) separation. B...

The introduction to this book blew me away. It sometimes so happens that I start reading a book without really thinking about it. For the first 5, 10 pages, I don't take it "seriously", if you will. I think it's sort of a professional flaw, after reading so many books, I know from the very first one...

Very disappointing, and yet not a dreadful book either (I've read five other McEwan's, all 4* or 5*).The narrator is preparing the memoirs of his dying mother-in-law and particularly wanting details of a terrifying encounter with black dogs more than 40 years ago that changed the direction of her li...

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